Conductive adhesive compositions comprising an adhesive resin and a conductive filler are used in the fabrication and assembly of semiconductor packages and microelectronic devices, both to mechanically attach, and to create electrical conductivity between, integrated circuit devices and their substrates. The most commonly used conductive filler is silver flake. The adhesive resin can be chosen from a wide variety of resins known in the art for this purpose. The resin is needed because the silver flake typically used is not sufficiently adhesive to adhere the integrated circuit device to its substrate. The presence of the resin, however, limits the high thermal and electrical conductance of the silver.
Work has been done on conductive adhesive compositions containing no adhesive resins and only nano-silver as both the conductive agent and the adhering agent. Although nano-silver can sinter at temperatures lower than conventional silver flake because it has a higher surface area, it remains porous when sintered at those low temperatures. The presence of pores can cause voids in the conductive composition, which can lead to failure of the semiconductor or microelectronic device in which the conductive composition is used. Thus, nano-silver must be sintered at high heat and pressure to eliminate pores and attain sufficient densification in order to be suitable for use in semiconductor manufacture.
The present invention gives enhanced conductivity in high power devices as a replacement for solder in conventional semiconductor assembly, and provides an alternative to the typical conductive adhesive compositions comprising conventional silver flake and adhesive resin and to compositions containing only nano-silver that must be sintered with pressure.